There is a nice link that has somehow resurrected my faith in D3. Talking about difficulty and viable builds.
Yeah, not a fan of making players go through the game 3-4 times just to get to the "fun part." Especially if it's on a per-character basis, that's just lame. It worked with Diablo and Diablo II because those difficulty levels were balanced to the character levels you'd be in those modes, but Diablo III isn't giving me that impression so much. We'll see, I guess.
Truth be told though, I'm looking forward to Torchlight II and Path of Exile a lot more.
Are you drunk/wasted/comatose/typing random text while watching kpop and headbanging your desk?It worked with Diablo and Diablo II because those difficulty levels were balanced to the character levels you'd be in those modes, but Diablo III isn't giving me that impression so much.
Are you drunk/wasted/comatose/typing random text while watching kpop and headbanging your desk?It worked with Diablo and Diablo II because those difficulty levels were balanced to the character levels you'd be in those modes, but Diablo III isn't giving me that impression so much.
I have to agree, dislike that part too. Why cant I simply start the real game right away? They must be damn sure of themselves and their game if they assume we are going to play it a few times at least. Or its REALLY short which is unlikely.
In D2 I never even finished nightmare. No, wait, I once did, after many tries.
Except for a very vague similarity in the color palette and the item drops, which is again is similar to diablo 2, I would say that is quite inaccurate. For all the complaints of diablo 3 having tpo "cartoonish" graphics, torchlight does the cartoonish graphics tenfold more.Feels like Torchlight 1? There goes my interest.
Being familiar with much of your writing, I wonder if you could indulge me the answer of this little silly question: Imagine, the admittedly unrealistic scenario, that EA were publishing these games, forced absolutely no changes on them except for giving the games a lot more funds, and EA otherwise had the exact reputation as they have in the real world. Do you still think you would look forward to these game?Yeah, not a fan of making players go through the game 3-4 times just to get to the "fun part." Especially if it's on a per-character basis, that's just lame. It worked with Diablo and Diablo II because those difficulty levels were balanced to the character levels you'd be in those modes, but Diablo III isn't giving me that impression so much. We'll see, I guess.
Truth be told though, I'm looking forward to Torchlight II and Path of Exile a lot more.
and GRIM DAWWWNNNN
Assuming EA had their same reputation, that would include messing with stuff, rushing projects out the door, treating developers poorly, cannibalizing studios whose games fail after they make huge changes recommended by the people on top (who keep their jobs, of course), and so on... why wouldn't I be pessimistic?Being familiar with much of your writing, I wonder if you could indulge me the answer of this little silly question: Imagine, the admittedly unrealistic scenario, that EA were publishing these games, forced absolutely no changes on them except for giving the games a lot more funds, and EA otherwise had the exact reputation as they have in the real world. Do you still think you would look forward to these game?
Hmm, indeed you are very right. I get a hunch however sometimes on the codex that many games are principally loved for its "indiness" or "old-school-ness" and hated for its "tripple-A-ness".
It's freaking Diablo. It's all about loot drops and clicking stuff until it dies so you can get more loot drops that lets you click things to death faster. You may not see the appeal but that doesn't matter when it comes to designing a good Diablo sequel; they better do.
So easy game that teaches people to spam skills and click blindly again and again = preparing players for high difficulties. Easy to learn, difficult to master my ass. Just about the only thing in Diablo III's systems that would allow for any sort of "mastery" comes in item and skill selection, and I'm not sure what's so masterful about grinding for gear. What, do cooldowns, mana costs and so on increase as you go into the game? Does life regeneration gear become harder to find?
If there's a difficulty curve, with gear and skills becoming relatively less powerful against monsters, then doesn't that just fit the definition of HP bloat? Diablo is not a very complicated game and the most complicated parts of it always came from the character system, not loot drops - with that out the window, there's no involved Devil May Cry-style action to pick up the slack. I honestly do not see much potential for depth in a game with suck a simple and limited set of inputs, and I'd love to be wrong... but there's only so much you can do with a single character and the interplay between HP, blocking(?) and elemental resistances.
I have to agree, dislike that part too. Why cant I simply start the real game right away? They must be damn sure of themselves and their game if they assume we are going to play it a few times at least. Or its REALLY short which is unlikely.
In D2 I never even finished nightmare. No, wait, I once did, after many tries.
It's not that unlikely that the game will be short... Areas are a tad smaller than Diablo 2. And obviously they say that the game "is not meant to be played on normal", so they probably made it shorter. They say that the point of that game is loot anyway...
I have to agree, dislike that part too. Why cant I simply start the real game right away? They must be damn sure of themselves and their game if they assume we are going to play it a few times at least. Or its REALLY short which is unlikely.
In D2 I never even finished nightmare. No, wait, I once did, after many tries.
It's not that unlikely that the game will be short... Areas are a tad smaller than Diablo 2. And obviously they say that the game "is not meant to be played on normal", so they probably made it shorter. They say that the point of that game is loot anyway...
They've said it takes about 20 hours for a run through the normal difficulty, assuming you explore about 80% of the levels and aren't just racing to the next boss. We'll see though: in my experience, game length estimates are ALWAYS inflated.
But that's how it worked in D2 and many other gamesI think they fucked up a bit in splitting the content between difficulties... especially such an important thing as Monster AI!
I completely agree.A game should never be about its duration. That's a horrible misconception that still sticks around since the early days of the gaming industry, an leading to many games consisting mostly of filler tasks, which makes playing the game feel more like a job than being entertained. I finished Limbo in a little more than 2 hours. Still, it is one of the best and most memorable games I've played, because the developers did not cram its game with 100+ hours content, just for the sake of putting that as a bullet point on the game package (a practice quite common in the late 90s early 2000, I remember). There was only the content that needed to be there, and the content there was, was executed well.
And now, the excess funding of wasteland 2, leads to all kinds of new areas and characters and portraits and stupid shit. It's a wasted opportunity, because those funds could go into making the pre-existing areas more unique and interesting, pre-existing character more 3 dimensional. And if that ended up in a 20 hour game, fine, would much rather do that then to waste 100+ hours on another RPG with 80% grind. I fear that wasteland 2 will end up being just that though.